People who believe in god(s) are inclined to say that one reason they believe in god(s) is because they would find their lives "meaningless" otherwise. So, here's my question: how does belief in god(s) create "meaning" in life? Let's consider an example. Many Christians are inclined to say that one…
What is it to be loyal? According to Merriam Webster, to be "loyal" is to be
1 : unswerving in allegiance: as a: faithful in allegiance to one's lawful sovereign or government b: faithful to a private person to whom fidelity is due c: faithful to a cause, ideal, custom, institution, or product.I don't have a problem with this definition. I do object, however, that "loyalty" has been given a free pass in modern American culture, as though loyalty is always a good thing. In particular, the mass media has bought into this linguistic sleight-of-hand: according to the mainstream media, it is always a good thing to be "loyal." Loyalty is undoubtedly a virtue when we are dealing with pet dogs. We like our dogs to be loyal. We like our dogs to do what we tell them to do. The loyalty of a human being is not necessarily a good thing, however. Loyalty is a matter of committing oneself to a person, to a group of people or to a cause. But people and causes can be either praiseworthy or despicable (or something in between). If a social cause to which I am loyal is that all babies should have basic medical care, loyalty to such a cause would be a good thing. If my idea is that we should all give homage to Hitler, loyalty to this cause would be a horrible idea. Therefore, how can it be said that loyalty is per se a good thing unless one first examines the merit of the person(s) or clause(s) to which a person is being loyal? [More . . . ]
Yesterday I wrote a post describing how I discovered Bertrand Russell while I was an intellectually frustrated and isolated teen-aged boy. Back then, I was startled to see someone else who was publicly critical of religious institutions. Thinking about those days yesterday provoked me to scour the Internet today for some of Russell’s well-known quotes. There are many more Russell quotes out there than these; he was a prolific writer.
Russell, best known for being a mathematician and logician, dismayed many people while he was alive. After all, he didn’t believe in God. He spoke openly of sexual pleasure being a good thing; he protested against the Vietnam war. Now, however, many of his writings seem only like common sense.
I admired Russell’s clean writing style, his sense of wit, his astute observations and his good heart.
I’ve previously written that dollars are fungible (See “The Curse of Fungible Dollars”). In that article I pointed out that dollars are completely interchangeable. I noted that there is actually only one kind of dollar and that dollars don’t come pre-labeled as “Christmas ornament dollars,” “pedicure dollars,” “Xbox dollars” or “charitable cause dollars.” I further suggested that we work hard to brainwash ourselves that non-fungible dollars exist and that we are free to spend any dollar we haven’t chosen to label a “charity dollar” on anything at all, conscience free. To see the absurdity of that mindset, try to imagine a charity refusing your donation because the money you offered came out of your “vacation” fund.
Many Americans would consider my fungible dollars article to be a curse because it has the effect of moralizing every dollar we spend. That every dollar is potentially a dollar we could (and possibly should) spend to help desperate human beings thus becomes a toxic thought that we prevent ourselves from considering. It causes too much cognitive dissonance. . If you doubt the toxicity of such a thought, imagine speaking freely of the fungibility of dollars at a Las Vegas casino or at any other entertainment mecca where those “entertainment” dollars flow freely. The mere mention that all dollars are fungible will trigger the rapid and painful collapse of elaborate mental worlds constructed by everyone within hearing range.
With the same dollars we spend to buy tickets to concerts or sports events, …
In a short article called “The Myth of Secular Moral Chaos,” Sam Harris asks this simple question: What does the New Testament actually say about morality? As a warm-up, he describes Old Testament morality (sometimes cited and approved in the new testament):
Human sacrifice, genocide, slaveholding, and misogyny are consistently celebrated. Of course, God’s counsel to parents is refreshingly straightforward: whenever children get out of line, we should beat them with a rod (Proverbs 13:24, 20:30, and 23:13–14). If they are shameless enough to talk back to us, we should kill them (Exodus 21:15, Leviticus 20:9, Deuteronomy 21:18–21, Mark 7:9–13, and Matthew 15:4–7). We must also stone people to death for heresy, adultery, homosexuality, working on the Sabbath, worshiping graven images, practicing sorcery, and a wide variety of other imaginary crimes.
When I told a fundamentalist relative that such writings disturbed me and that they did not inspire me, she said: “You shouldn’t read so much of the Old Testament and focus on those things that trouble you. Instead, you need to read more of the New Testament.” Although she claimed that the Bible was “perfect and without any contradictions,” apparently (for her), the New Testament was more perfect than the Old Testament. Harris has also heard this claim, from Christians, that Jesus is kinder and gentler than the Old Testament God. Harris therefore checked the New Testament: